Gruesome Menagerie
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Gruesome Menagerie

Sorcery

Choose a creature card with converted mana cost 1 in your graveyard, then do the same for creature cards with converted mana costs 2 and 3. Return those cards to the battlefield.

ChaosKnightXIII on Vraska update

2 years ago

Gruesome Menagerie wouldn't work in this deck as you have no converted 1 creature cards. You have to select a 1, 2, and 3 for the effect to resolve.

wallisface on Golgari deatbonnet heirloom mirror

2 years ago

Some thoughts:

  • your build-around creatures of Deathbonnet Sprout  Flip and Heirloom Mirror  Flip are both incredibly slow cards to get running, so I think you want to be aiming this deck to be something more midrange-orientated than aggro (as a lot of decks will outspeed this interaction). Luckily you're in the right colour-pair for a very interactive and midrange style deck (more on suggestions around this below).

  • Both Jadelight Ranger and Merfolk Branchwalker seem like really bad options here, as they don't particularly help enable anything you're doing. Some better options could be as so: Eternal Scourge feels strong here in that your build-around creatures can exile it, but then it can still be cast, and the process can be repeated, helping you in long grindy matchups. Creatures like Demon's Disciple, Fleshbag Marauder, Abyssal Gatekeeper and Plaguecrafter all seem useful too, for both providing needed interaction to slow down the opponent, while also filling your graveyard with their juicy corpses ready for consumption.

  • I would really, strongly, suggest against you trying to run Orcus, Prince of Undeath in this deck. Him being red is going to push you into three colours, and trying to build a 3-colour deck on a budget while still having it function isn't easy. Secondly, it just demands an insane quantity of mana. For 5 mana he'll get you back a single 1cmc creature... that's pretty lame - without dedicated ramp he's just not going to perform well. I think you have a better chance of making something viable by keeping your plan simple, and that means ditching this guy.

  • I think Call of the Death-Dweller is a decent card to include in the deck, but don't bother with Gruesome Menagerie. It's a LOT of mana and is probably going to cause more deck building restrictions than actually help you out.

Just brainstorming here, but something like the below feels viable to me. Your meta and/or tastes may vary (the list I've built here is with Modern-legality in mind, just because that's the format I know best. Also tried to stay with budget cards) It centralizes around the Sprout and Mirror, but also abuses creature sacrifice with Glissa to accelerate your gameplan, and get Mirrors back if needed:

DubWubby on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

3 years ago

Masterful what are your thoughts on using Vizier of Remedies with a persist creature such as Putrid Goblin or Restless Apparition for infinite loops? I know that it could be a bit fragile only having a single "-1/-1 reducer".

I'm thinking something along the lines of having a drain or card draw on death effect out, use Buried Alive to bury Carrion Feeder , Vizier of Remedies , and Restless Apparition , then mass recur with Gruesome Menagerie or Agadeem's Awakening  Flip and start looping deaths. Could also use Rally the Ancestors to reanimate at instant speed!

Love the deck!

zAzen7977 on LILIANA’S EMBRACE - Self-Mill Reanimator [Ret.]

3 years ago

Hey channelfireball12345, thank you for your comments! Nullpriest of Oblivion is definitely an option for this build. It’s a good reanimation target for Inscription of Ruin and Lurrus of the Dream-Den. I’ve considered cutting Mire Tritons for the Nullpriests, but the Tritons provide deathtouch, immediate lifegain, and self-mill, and the self-mill is critical for this deck to function. I could also make room for the Nullpriests by swapping out some utility cards for it like Escape Velocity or Thrill of Possibility.

Another issue is that I’ve optimized the list for maximizing Call of the Death-Dweller, so I have chosen not to mainboard any creatures over 3 CMC. My only big creatures are Massacre Wurms on the sideboard, but that may change as I do more testing. The Nullpriest costs 6 mana when fully kicked, and I think this is prohibitively expensive in this build. From my experience, reaching 6 mana can be difficult unless the game goes long (my previous build didn’t run anything beyond 5 CMC), and I would rather run the Wurms or more Inscription of Ruin because of its versatility (being able to discard 2 is very useful to make Nighthawk Scavengers grow). Plus Liliana, Waker of the Dead’s ultimate is achievable and helps bring back creatures during the late game.

To make the Nullpriest more worthwhile from a cost/benefit analysis perspective, I would include it in a control deck running more expensive creatures, more lands, and more disruption so I could take advantage of its full potential. However, I am not dismissing the Nullpriest in this build quite yet. Lots of testing needs to be done.

And I agree about Gruesome Menagerie, that card was really interesting, but the Standard card pool made it difficult to utilize it effectively. When I had 5 mana available, I always wanted to play Doom Whisperer instead. Maybe it can find a place in Pioneer in a golgari build with lots of self mill and ramping, or something similar.

channelfireball12345 on LILIANA’S EMBRACE - Self-Mill Reanimator [Ret.]

3 years ago

Its reanimation mode is pretty expensive, but Nullpriest of Oblivion offers solid stats and a pretty versatile suite of effects, plus it can be reanimated using the inscription in a pinch. By the way, Gruesome Menagerie, while a really neat pet card of mine, is unfortunately rotating out of Standard, so as much as I'd love to see it finally realize some of its potential in a sweet standard list such as this, it won't work out.

zAzen7977 on LILIANA’S EMBRACE - Self-Mill Reanimator [Ret.]

3 years ago

griffstick, Gruesome Menagerie is a great suggestion, thanks! It’s expensive at 5 mana, but I would like to experiment with a single copy to see if it works. The issue is whether it is more useful than Doom Whisperer.

Thanks PuddinWing! The deck has definitely improved over time. Lurrus of the Dream-Den is a card I really like and wanted to include in this build initially, but I ended up removing several creatures and cut Lurrus. I may swap out a Grimdancer for a single copy.

kenvan19, I really appreciate the comment, thanks!! I’m glad you have fun playing with it, I do too!

griffstick on LILIANA’S EMBRACE - Self-Mill Reanimator [Ret.]

3 years ago

What about Gruesome Menagerie. It could get back Grimdancer, Mire Triton, and Archfiend's Vessel, right into play.

ulysses2009 on Sultai Ground Seal graveyard

3 years ago

Thank you for taking youre time :)

I absolutely agree that a deck should not be built around one single card, and i propably would include Leyline of the Void. I am not quite sure about Grafdigger's Cage, because I wouldn't want to hinder effects that work well with Ground Seal, but still reanimate (i was thinking to use Gruesome Menagerie or Connive / Concoct perhaps, as i think they don't target up to resolution and are therefore unaffected). But up to now, i haven't found a combination of creatures for Gruesome Menagerie to make it worthwhile.

Btw. does Animate Dead work with Ground Seal? On the one hand it has to have a target, on the other hand it doesn't say it targets a creature.

As for the deck, i was thinking about a control plan that eventually wins as soon as it generates infinite mana, either with Tasigur, the Golden Fang or with a Seasons Past+Tutor loop as a backup to then loop cards like Reality Shift to win.

I like combo as a wincondition and a playstile and i don't mind going a little on the competitive side, but i always want to have synergy in the things i am doing and i want the deck to feel unique.

I am a little curious you added Emergent Ultimatum to your List. Is there a pile that goes with it? I suppose it is a win somehow with Thassa's Oracle? I am still trying to figure out what combination of creatures goes with it (i am trying to make it work with creatures to perhaps be able to use Defense of the Heart as an alternative way to set the combo in play). For me, it would be enough if it generates infinite colored mana, from there i think there will be a way to win (the same goes for Gruesome Menagerie btw.).

As you see, i am just at the beginning building this deck, but i hope you got an impression of some of my ideas and where i want to go with it.

What are your thoughts?

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